The million-dollar social enterprise

Wade Tink probably didn’t expect his social enterprise would grow by 1000 per cent – albeit off a small base – and reach annual revenues of more than $1 million only two years after taking it over.

Project Everest grew 1000 per cent last year and is on track to grow 250 per cent this year. In calendar 2016 the venture made $1 million in revenue.

Tink, 31, served in East Timor as an Australian army officer in 2006, an experience that inspired him to acquire an 80 per cent share of Project Everest in 2015. He wanted to do a better job than the big international aid organisations whose work he witnessed first-hand in the army.

Project Everest builds sustainable commercial solutions to community problems in developing areas. It relies on Australian and, to a lesser extent, Singaporean university students as its manpower; working on a Project Everest initiative usually counts as academic credit.